Thailand: Damnoen Saduak Floating Market

Because we mentioned that we were interested, AG's uncle's friend (I'll call him Dr. Chu) was kind enough to take us to Damnoen Saduak Floating Market.  We met him at the hospital where both he and AG's uncle works and then he whisked us away in a fancy hospital shuttle.  Not sure if that was a legitimate use of a hospital vehicle, but hey, no complaints here.

The market was kind of winding down by the time we got there (or maybe it was quieter because it was a weekday):

Dr. Chu made sure we had breakfast first.  He bypassed all the coffee stalls selling western cuisine, ignored all the food vendors trying to entice us into their stalls, and went straight for this quiet little station:

I really couldn't get enough of basil pork in Thailand.  So cheap and so good:

With a little bit of fish sauce...brilliant.

Dr. Chu also ordered a soup to share:

He noticed that CK had been eyeing the local fruit, so he slipped next door to the fruit stand and brought us back some fruit to sample.  One of them was langsat:

We had no idea what it was at the time and kept referring to it as "potato fruit."  Don't scoff.  It really does look like a potato!  In fact, I found its name by googling "fruit looks like potato."

The outer skin was kind of leathery.  The fruit itself was nothing like what we expected:

It came in segments and tasted like longan...but creamy...?  Yea, it felt weird to us too.  But deliciously weird.

Dr. Chu also got us some pomelo:

Compared to the pomelo I'm used to, this Thai pomelo was not as sour.  

After demolishing all the fruit, Dr. Chu rented a wooden longtail boat and off we went down the floating market.  The best part of the excursion was when we hit the residential section of the river and our boatman revved the engine:

I spent the entire trip squealing like a three year old.  No shame.